Mankind must go green or die, says Prince Charles

Source: The Independent (UK)

Environmental damage left unchecked would be ‘suicide on a grand scale’, Prince warns

By JONATHAN BROWN
Friday 23 November 2012

The Prince of Wales has warned that mankind is on the brink of “committing suicide on a grand scale” unless urgent progress is made in tackling green issues such as carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, intensive farming and resource depletion.

Adopting uncharacteristically apocalyptic language, the Prince said the world was heading towards a “terrifying point of no return” and that future generations faced an “unimaginable future” on a toxic planet.

In a pre-recorded speech broadcast in acceptance of an lifetime environmental achievement award, the Prince said green views that had once seen him written off as a “crank” were now backed by hard evidence.

He told the gala ceremony for the 7th International Green Awards at Battersea Power Station in London that fossil fuels and supplies of fresh water were under pressure while the stability of weather patterns was threatened and “vast amounts of CO2” were still pumped into the atmosphere. “Humanity and the Earth will soon begin to suffer some very grim consequences,” he said.

“It’s therefore an act of suicide on a grand scale to ride so roughshod over those checks and balances and flout nature’s necessary limits as blatantly as we do. The longer we go on ignoring what is already happening and denying what will happen in the future, the more profoundly we condemn our grandchildren and their children to an unbearably toxic and unstable existence. We simply have to turn the tide.”

90. in a word: Bullshit

The Maker groups are making recycling into a second industrial revolution.
using pollutants as feedstocks changes the game in dramatic ways. (heavy metal polluted waters means that applcation of energy gives you heavy metals - more phones - and fresh water, just as a quick example..)

There seem to be a number of people on this site that WANT civilization to die. Nothing's stopping them from living in the woods like the savages that they are.

97. "Low tech defines savagery"

My, and I thought behavior did. Are you sure that hi-tech savages didn't just get to be the ones that wrote history?

I'm not going to let Billions die, when we can save the whole shebang with a few simple levers

Good for you. Get on it. Why are you typing here? You have hundreds of shiny balloons to launch. Why don't you check in after you actually do something useful, if its useful at all? Otherwise, we call it blowing smoke.

102. Expensive? Sell more barrels of oil

Whatever we must produce to create a solution should also be counted (on a carbon level) towards the problem. Generating capital requires energy consumption, and spending that capital is cashing in on a promise that society has reciprocated that production. These are parts of the "solutions" that are generally neglected in mitigation models

82. iPhones are a representation of a non-efficient consumption of rare earth resources and energy

Unlike tools of the past, they do not enable mankind to do more work with the same amount of energy (as they come off the shelf with considerable carbon-debt). This manifestation of our infinite growth civilization is a perfect example of why we have these over-consumption problems today.

Look... if YOU want to live low-tech, have at it. If you try to make ME live that way, you'll face jail or the CCU.

A big event forcing people to live a certain way now is water shortages and famine caused from climate change and human activities; it is civilization that is forcing sustainable communities to change their lifestyles as their ecosystems erode. You are not the victim, but the enabler of the perpetrators.

I will not force you to do anything. Ironically, it is the cornucopiasts who will literally have civilization pulled from their cold, dead hands from exponential problems your exponential utopia is creating. Unfortunately, those who see another way (not "better", but merely viable), are subject to the same extinction as well.

In any case, good luck on your experiment. I hope it makes you "happy".

86. Thank you for the well wishing...

I won't live long enough to see the full effects of my project, but it should stop all effects of global warming, inside of 60 years. The idea of creating a legacy that saves civilization sounds pretty cool.

Your term "cornucopiasts" shows your stripes... Limits to Growth cult. My students read the 10 pager in Rolling Stone magazine, and found "Long Emergency" to be classicst and racist. One even said he'd use weapons to stop the low tech morons. The rest of the class applauded. I gave him an "A."

-As I'm going for cheap green power, I figure we can "mine" the polluted water for fresh water. We can also stop using coal/oil/gas.
-As my plan is to pull the CO2 out of the air and turn it into Graphite/more balloons/buckytubes, I figure we can stop global warming.
-As my plan also provides surface area, we could grow crops.

Instead of seeing things in a melodramatic black/white set of fallacies, why not try and fix the problem?

96. Why yes

Is there a specific reason....that you WANT to live low tech?

Firstly:
Lower consumption of energy reduces global GHG emissions

Secondarily (as observed in current hunter-gatherer societies):
20 hour work week (far less for me where I live)
Egalitarian society
More balanced diets
Better health and less sickness
Less stress
More time for social interaction & community

I do not judge you if you find plastic with flashy lights as more important than those things, though I will feel the consequence of your gadget laden lifestyle.

99. and how many people die off?

As for the egalitarian society, it's pretty obvious that you don't know what you are talking about.

Less sickness? What about vitamin deficiency? Tetnus? Rabies? How about those high infant and mother mortality rates?

To be perfectly blunt, I *DO* judge you. If you want to live low tech, I suggest you give it a try: do a live-off-the-land trail run on the Appalachian Trail as a through hiker. Remember...no preserved foods, no modern fabrics, no modern heat sources.

Some of the characters here on DU are beginning to sound like stock novel characters from Barnes' Directive 51 and Daybreak Zero

My GHG footprint is 2 tons, currently. Once the windmills and the PVs are in place, it'll be zero. With the FIRST balloon up, it'll be negative 210.

101. Famine will be the climate change's reaper

As for the egalitarian society, it's pretty obvious that you don't know what you are talking about.

How is that? There is almost an extreme amount of egalitarianism in hunter-gather cultures and pure communialism (as everyone shares food). Are there exceptions? Sure. And yes, far less sickness and nutritional problems, which generally started at the advent of agriculture and monocropping.

I *DO* judge you.

You should fix whatever is wrong inside of you before you attempt to fix the world.

Once the windmills and the PVs are in place, it'll be zero

Minus the carbon debt incurred from the production of the windmills and PV. Or would accounting for that production incur ego loss?

103. okay... sure

How is that? There is almost an extreme amount of egalitarianism in hunter-gather cultures and pure communialism (as everyone shares food). Are there exceptions? Sure. And yes, far less sickness and nutritional problems, which generally started at the advent of agriculture and monocropping.

You still didn't answer those bits about rabies and tetnus and infant/mother mortality. Then there's always Scurvy and its friends.

You should fix whatever is wrong inside of you before you attempt to fix the world.

Other than PTSD and a few busted parts, not much wrong with me. But then, I'M not the one pushing for living like a savage. Also, you might want to give the pop-psych schtick a rest...

I'm using found materials for the windmills, and grabbing bits of PV panels already created for the solar farm (with some luck and hard work, I might be able to cobble together a solar furnace thermopile...) sort of the scavenger-tech version of power creation.

105. Do you know anything about nutrition? Scurvy? Seriously?

Please read up on the history of this condition. You may be surprised when you find out about agriculturalists who really experience this; it was very common among sailors without access to perishables (fruits and those things gatherers eat). Archeological records of ancient men actually reveal a very sound diet.

And yes, there are other conditions that would be worsened without committing large amount of resources to medical technology, but all in all, I can accept that. I can surely accept that before resigning my children's fate to famine and a toxic world.

But then, I'M not the one pushing for living like a savage.

That is actually rather a straw man you wove together yourself in your fury. I understand there is no going back to pure tribal hunting/gathering. But, with the amount of carbon we have burned thus far, we have accumulated vast amounts of knowledge and produced many things that can make a hybrid simpler life actually quite enjoyable and worth pursuit, or rather, surely more enjoyable than a massive failure in centralized mono-cropping model we depend upon. To ask for an organized decline isn't to demand that everyone burn their jeans and make leather clothing tomorrow. Rather, its about suggesting we put resources into creating local resilience and build redundant food systems that will not suffer a large systems shock. Its about changing the way we think about infinite growth and even how we organize labor. Its about refocusing values away from materialism and towards social interaction and the commons. Civilization fundementally has not proven its case that there should be infinite growth. What we can take away today, from the accomplishments of civilization, could lead to an immensely better human condition than 10K years ago if applied correctly. But if we plow ahead--as the infinite growth mindset dictates--it will likely lead to untold disaster.

113. The only one who is going to "force" us to live like that

is Mother Nature herself. We are no longer driving the climate bus.

The wheels will fall off in earnest in about 18 years, when the global temperature rise heads towards +2 degrees Celsius in 2030. Because of the inertia of the world's social, industrial and climate systems, along with the human inability to respond appropriately to future risk, there is absolutely nothing we will or even can do to prevent this.

Worse, unless we stop using fossil fuels entirely (!) the global temperature will not stabilize. And even worse than that, on our current trajectory we will stop using fossil fuels entirely. On our present growth pattern, we'll drain our fossil fuel reserves entirely dry around 2060 - at which point things just ... stop; but the temperature will just keep on rising.

Over the next few decades the weather is going to get steadily, catastrophically worse, leading to an accelerating cycle of crop failures, water supply failures and spreading social upheaval. No amount of green energy , energy efficiency measures, carbon taxes or even rationing can prevent that from happening at this point. At best they might delay the final outcome by a decade or so.

Basically, our social fate follows the temperature curve. We are just entering the knee of that curve now, and it will become progressively steeper over the next 40 years - even if the social chaos becomes severe enough to halt our industrial progress. In 2050 the global temperature rise will pass 3 degrees C at which point it's pretty well game over for GlobCiv 1.0.

The crisis has begun now; a significant portion of the global system will fall apart around 2030; the lights will be out by 2050. We have less than 40 years left as a functioning civilization.

Getting from here to our eventual, inevitable ultra-low-energy lifestyle in just 40 years is going to be a cast-iron, gold-plated woofer, no question about it. But it's going to happen, regardless of anyone's wishes or objections. Rant and rail all you want, that's what the evidence shows.

Oh, and about the rabies thing?

I would gladly trade off a few deaths from old-fashioned rabies against the modern epidemic of heart disease and cancer that is burning though the world today. We are no closer to bringing those under control than we are to controlling our use of fossil fuels.

114. Who said anything about a commune (besides you)?

Your ravings are loaded with false assumption and you sound very angry, hurt and bitter in general. I don't know if you view social reorganization as some type of existential "defeat". Frankly, I have no idea why you flew off the handle in general, ranting about "savages". Again, I do hope you can find some peace in life.

As far as the Strawman arguments go, they are perpetual from you, to the point of absurdity. If your aim is to simply argue logic away, then Ill give you that one.

118. I'll admit that I'm angry at the idea that there are still luddites in the world...

From my perspectives, you are raving... and working from the pop psychology schtick.

As I've said - repeatedly - if YOU want to live that way, I'll simply despise you for the savage that you are. I still strongly suggest that you try several dry runs , via through hiking the Appalacian trail and no high tech stuff on your person. If you try to force others to live that way, I'll have to stop you. (My neighbor suggested Napalm, but I like the personal touch - knives.)

As to "social reorganization"... Let's define our terms, shall we? One of the great things about modern civilization is that we don't HAVE to orient everything around "the group." That's just group-think writ small.

120. It isn't enough that civilization can exploit and destroy the earth

They must despise those who choose not to lend a hand to their destruction (when they are not killing them). And this is where our "solutions" are supposed to come from? It hasn't been working out so well; perhaps blind angst isn't the best motivator.

I am sorry about this sickness afflicting you; there is so much joy if you can crawl past it. It is not me that is your enemy, and the fight ahead cannot be won with knives or napalm. Humans will soon learn that their old way of dealing with problems--violence and production--will have little beneficial impact in this new war against nature.

122. sigh

As I've said... Repeatedly...

If YOU want to live like a savage, have at it. If you try to force ME, you're going to need medical care, or a holy person of your choice. If YOU want to go and live in the woods, blessed be to you and yours. Come 'round my way, and I'll invoke Castle Doctrine.

The problems we currently face (resource depletion, energy crisis, pollution, and Global Warming) can be solved with better applications of technology. Wind and Solar (and a little Biomass and RTG-work) take care of the energy problem. Through-cycling takes care of the a lot of resource depletion. Using CO2 derived carbon as a construction resource takes care of the GHG.

My Carbon Footprint is 2 tons/year, what's yours?

You guys keep pushing the same button: This society is based on NOTHING more than unlimited growth, and the population is only increasing in growth. These are fallacies. There's a lot of us out there that actually reuse our stuff (To the point that my neighbors are wondering if my wife and I are simply hiding it in the basement.) Also, there's the interesting little tidbit that Western civilization is NOT increasing in size, nor increasing in now-renewable fuel-use.

Then you guys go on about the "glories" of living small and low tech. That pretty brings back death at a young age, higher rate of infant/mom mortality, and death by accident.

Sounds like a great world you're pushing for... I'll pass. Instead, I'll just help keep the cities alive. For fun, us city dwellers can go out and have luddite shoots.

123. "For fun, us city dwellers can go out and have luddite shoots"

This is verging on hate speech at this point.

There are things you may want to learn from those outside your city in case of emergency; the cities will not fare well from famine. I can casually walk to a nearby river and catch 200 lbs of salmon an hour right now in November. If the best you can contribute is shooting people who have skills beyond reading flashy gizmos, please question what you can actually contribute to your city (or the world for that matter with your balloons).

124. <chuckle>

okay... I'll admit to that last line being an attempt to get a rise...

As to what I can contribute:
-wind, solar, and biomass power
-my wife does urban farming (no fertilizers)
-building things of found materials
-we're working with some Makers to set up vertical farms in our city

I figure that's a start...

your implied skill set doesn't allow for a large number of people to live in any one area.

How about that low tech infant/mom mortality rate? What about the short life span?

While it's fun to talk about knifing savages, let's take a serious moment here...

Have you done a dry run to test your survival/living skills? in Winter and bad weather? If not, you're just blowing smoke.

125. Its all really irrelevant at this point

If things really go south (continue on this projectory with business as usual), my ecosystem will be only slightly more capable of supporting life than a city. I understand that. That is just life. I'm ok with that. I can't cling on an impossible dream, but only do my best for my children and teach them the skills my father taught me.

In any case, this problem isn't about me and you and petty snipping on the internet. Its about what is happening to a system that we are apart of, and what this ultimately means to the organisms within that system who are, by in large, much too insignificant to individually fix it or even guarantee their own survival. I think we have been cultured to accept that if we just keep doing more and more (burn more energy), any one of us can fix anything; sometimes I can't help but see that as a problem in itself. And surely, our inability to examine this system and recognize our own patterns, identifying which behaviors perpetually lead to failure, is definitely not helping to fix anything.

To summarize my position and bring this to an end, I find ultimate futility in the notion of assuring humans that they can keep on committing the same errors while being promised some amount of ingenuity will solve all problems. After thousands of years, I can only see the errors continue and multiply, or the ingenuity being incapable of obtaining resolution. After all, we are where we are today.

58. He's been ahead of the curve on biotech food, too.

4. I'm glad to see this. He's always been kind of a nerd. I greatly appreciate ANYONE

who's famous who uses his/her fame as a platform for good messaging. I hope to see a LOT more messaging on this issue, and by WAY more celebs of all different stripes, beyond just Prince Charles. People were laughing at him when he was talking to his plants. If you're lucky enough to have some sort of bully pulpit, you should damn well make use of it for the greater good!

Good for him! More please, sir! It'd be even better if Wills and Kate could join in and add their youth and star power as well.

11. I agree with you 100%. We can whine and snivel about what people don't say or do,

5. his majesty is correct and

“The longer we go on ignoring what is already happening
and denying what will happen in the future, the more profoundly
we condemn our grandchildren and their children to an unbearably
toxic and unstable existence. We simply have to turn the tide.”

6. Great! Perhaps he'll lead the way by curbing his posh lifestyle

We should all be willing to do with little less to help save the planet, including him. He can start by selling some of his considerable royal holdings in the UK for immediate reforestation & the building of wind farms.

115. Would you have environmental activists live in a cave and speak to the cave wall?

If they don't interact with the world (travel, use mass media, Internet, etc), they can't get the message out and can't work for change. Yes, they should do what they can to mitigate, but it is counterproductive to accuse them of hypocrisy. It's known as making the perfect the enemy of the good.

7. he's right but wondering if his Majesty has donated any parkland, money for open space, wildlife

Some people with lots of money talk the talk but they are still jet setters flying everywhere, heating/cooling huge homes, driving gas guzzlers...does Pr. Charles walk the walk? Does he have solar panels on his homes?

19. Because if Charles would just stop "jet setting around" we'd solve the problem?

Seriously, the situation is such that if he never rode in an airplane and gave away all his wealth* it would not make one bit of difference. It would be a nice gesture for the moment is all.

That's like those people who said Al Gore was profiting off of the book An Inconvenient Truth. Those people mocked his flying around in order to give lectures and educate the world. His giving lectures did more to raise awareness of the situation than if he had stayed at home and saved some jet fuel.

* I'm not sure if he even "owns" anything. He lives there by birth, but doubtful he could sell off a few castles if he wanted.

137. castles are a part of heritage

21. He has an estate that is an example of sustainable, organic living.

I have thought of him as a nature lover who has walked the talk, within his sphere of influence and provide an example of living close to nature. He's taken heat for supporting herbal remedies for health instead of pharmaceuticals, but I'm uninterested in seeking that link ritght now.

He has spoken against overpopulation many times in order to preserve the natural world. He's welcomed a diversity of people in the UK, saying the right thing to do is to accept changes in culture, IIRC Here's a few thimgs:

A Visit to Prince Charles' Highgrove Garden

...The Prince uses all organic materials in his gardens, he recycles water, has dug bore holes and has a reed bed system for grey water. Sheep are brought in from a neighbouring farm to graze and cut the meadow. Overhanging trees are trimmed by cows brought in to eat the bottom branches. No cement is used in the paving, instead there are bits of earth or wild thyme in between the paving stones so that insects can eat there. All workmen and craftsmen used are local to the area.

The Prince loves trees and has planted 10,000 of them across the 37 acre property, along with 9 miles of hedgerows. In one area there are japanese maples, in another laurel trees, in another the national collection of beech trees. He built a stunning tree house to commemorate the loss of a favourite Cedar of Lebanon, and new sprouts are growing out of the original old stump.

Each of the gardens has a different theme. They start out quite wild and become more formal as they come closer to the house. In the Woodland Garden there is a stumpery. This a Victorian notion--a pile of old tree roots, in this case sweet chestnuts, which are stacked up and held in place with steel rods. The end result looks like drift wood when in fact it is the bottom of the trees. It is a perfect habitat for ferns and insects and looks very sculptural.

At the back of the house is a long path of topiary, made of yew. The balls are each about 6' high and round and plump. They are designed by the gardeners, to whom the Prince gives free rein to create the shapes. The gardens just go on and on; there is an Islamic garden which won a prize at the Chelsea Flower show, there is a southern hemisphere garden with ferns, tree ferns, palms and eucalyptus. There is an azalea garden, a black and white garden (with white lupins and peonies and black grasses), italian gardens and another focussed around a sundial. The wildflower meadow is 4 acres and has poppies, camassia and every other wild flower imaginable...

...At home, the royal perspective has been criticized as conservative, stodgy and elitist. But to some of the generals of the American food revolution, the prince qualifies as downright progressive.

Alice Waters, who drove the organic movement in the United States, is smitten. "He is, in private, really one of the most forward-thinking, radical humanitarians I have ever talked to," she said.

The left-leaning food elite of the United States has prince fever, and it has nothing to do with an underlying fascination with the monarchy, Diana and Helen Mirren notwithstanding. To Ms. Waters and her troops, no one else of the prince's stature has spoken out on the issues they hold dear: responsible stewardship of the land, preservation of rural life and the need for good food grown without chemicals or worker exploitation...

Prince's paradise: BBC show reveals Prince Charles's organic garden at Highgrove...Today, it is fashionable to garden and farm organically. But in the 1980s, the Prince's ideas were considered outlandish and much criticised - something Charles says he was bewildered by at the time - but he was adamant that his private garden should be completely organic.

'Even in the 1960s, when I was a teenager, I hated what was going on - the endless tearing up and pulling down of all the wild places, many of which had taken hundreds of years to grow and were being destroyed in one day.

'It takes forever to recreate lost habitats. And I also felt the chemical approach to farming and gardening was not something that could ever last.

'To me, it was just not sustainable in the long run. We have to rediscover the vital importance of working with nature...''

I'm not a fan of royalty, but some of them can do some good. Whatever he's done otherwise to be hated for, fine, but this is okay with me. I also have acquaintances in Wales, where they are exploring different ways of energy and resource conservation while maintaining their rivers and wildlands. One of my favorite videos is from a park in the UK:

Breathtaking footage of the River Torridge in Devon and its wildlife throughout the seasons, set to Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

I have friends over there, and they have a different way of looking at land ownership than we do. It's a struggle to protect nature and people from the profit driven system as always. The impact of westerners on other ecosystems should not be forgotten, either. We are at a place where we must change. But all is not lost, because often times those of us online are not seeing the natural wealth that still remains, and the people that are maintaining it. I believe our economic beliefs and values are the main problem.

30. Of course it's okay. I'm just teasing you.

I just did a quick search and posted the first thing that looked good, obviously took too long because you beat me, anyway. LOL

Prince Charles has been one of my heroes for some time because of his eco-activism, even though I don't know all the details of his work.

The Simon Dale house is one of my favorites (I call it the Hobbit House, as I'm sure a lot of other people do), but I didn't realize it was in Wales. Read about it first a long time ago, probably in Grist or Treehugger.

I was not aware specifically of the Eco Village Pioneers and very happy to see the interesting video. Thanks for posting that! I have read that there are quite a few intentional eco-communities scattered around and even considered looking for one to live in at one point, but I'm too antisocial much of the time and better off where I am. lol

9. Coming hard on the heels of the PWC and World Bank papers on climate, this is fairly enormous news.

Good for Charles for speaking out in such uncompromising language. My highest compliment for people these days is, "He gets it."

Unfortunately it's already too late - we won't be able to stop global warming no matter how much we might wish to. We are about to dive into the "World of Hurt" funhouse ride. But it's good to be warned about what's happening.

10. One huge way to help the earth and ourselves

would be to limit population growth.
If everyone on earth would hold to 'one child per family unit' the population by 2100 would be @1.6 billion or 1900 levels.
Not only would this lessen the need for resources, but the existing resources would go a LOT further.

Unfortunately, we have to overcome religious fanatics and traditional family structures to get there.
As with other parts of the environmental movement, education will be the key.

15. We'll be back there by 2100 anyway.

The climate is going to start really coming apart by 2030. That will take down a lot of the world's food supplies and organizational ability. Our religious, political and economic beliefs will make no difference at all one way or the other. We are already entering the global funhouse ride I call "World of Hurt".

The population problem will be solved by 2100, but at this point Mother Nature is going to act a lot faster than we can.

59. yes!!!!!! I've been talking about ths for years!!!

Just a few days ago here, some GUY laid into me for denying the drive that makes us human. Guess I'm not a fully human being, then? I didn't bother to reply.....just didn't feel like taking the time.

No amount of "reducing our carbon footprint" can make up for the sheer numbers of humans each intent on survival--Heat. Transportation in order to work and procure money for food and shelter--and living as comfortably as possible, and nations all desiring a "first world" economy.

12. He can start by not taking private jets

18. Who cares?

It would make no difference at all. Few are going to listen to him, and those that get what he's saying understand that it just doesn't matter to the planet or the (limited) future of humanity if he flies a private jet or has big estates.

That's not the point any more - except to those who haven't got the point yet.

17. I welcome His Majesty's words, but I do worry that it's already too late.

There are many who get it across the general public, but very few are willing to do much of anything. Maybe CFLs, if they're made to do it, or the electric utility gives them away. A few will buy hybrids and feel better believing they have changed the world, but it's merely a drop in an ocean.

Far too many are waiting for rooftop solar PV arrays that completely power their home for $99.95 and EVs that cost $10K are the size of a Hummer and can travel 1,000 miles on a charge.

20. I know it's already too late.

Even if those tepid, snoozing masses woke up and did something more substantial than change their light bulbs (like deciding to stop driving entirely and not have any kids at all) it's too late. We've got max 18 years before the calliope starts to crash to the ground. 2030 is when the planet passes +1.5C on its inevitable way to +3 by 2060, and then on to +5 or higher.

60. i knew at a young age that i didnt want kids. several reasons....

Part of my knowing had to do with thinking there were too many of us...I think I read about overpopulation experiments with rats when I was 13 or so, and I knew it was the same for humans.

And even with my lack of interest in kids and the mothering role, I still was sorely tempted by the romanticized fairy tale of fulfilled womanhood, when I was in my late twenties and everyone around me was "large with child" and getting all kinds of special attention. Thank dog I didn't let the myth grab me so hard that I went against what I knew about myself and about everything else.

61. Definitely not too late, no matter how pessimistic some might be.

Now, TBH, I'm not really terribly optimistic here. The West may be able to weather this OK, but many other parts of the world could be going thru hell. In fact, India and China may suffer the worst; if the Himalayas dry up, tens of millions of Indians will find themselves without drinking water, and frankly, I don't think the PRC was long for this world anyhow.

There's really no legitimate doubt in anyone's mind(outside a few from the fringes of course), that humanity will still be here in the next century. But how will our condition be? Better to deal with the problem and risk possibly suffering a short-term slowing of growth, or pay worse consequences later.

Nothing is inevitable in the world of climate prediction except that the temperature is still rising.........but better safe than sorry, IMHO.

130. Even civilization's fall isn't at all inevitable.

Yeah, I know, sounds all bubbly, right? But when you think about it, the world's still a really, well, big place. I mean, yes, it's true that some areas will likely suffer far worse than others; after all, much of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia do only hang on by a thread, while at least we can fall back on some resources.

As for the death tolls? The most realistic worst-case scenario I can think of, due to climate change, if we make that the only factor, would probably be around 1-1.5 billion by 2100. Of course, with other factors involved, such as civil strife, wars, etc., as well as possible epidemics, I'd say that number would go up to about 2-2.5 billion. Hell, I'll go down the pessimists' route and up that number to 2.7-2.8 billion. Definitely not pleasant at all, under any circumstances but that's really only in the absolute worst case scenarios.

37. You misconstrue my intention, I think.

I have never been an American. I'm a Canadian who has had the enormous good luck to spend two full years "away" - a year in Holland, and a year in France (Paris in 1968 of all the outrageous pieces of good luck.) After leaving the Paris riots I traveled through Prague that spring - two weeks before the Russians invaded - then drove north through Moscow and out through Leningrad. I've been to Central and South America, North Africa and even to Massachusetts. So yes, I know something of the world.

That, however, was not my point. Let me try and explain it this way.

We (all of us - rich and poor; black, brown, yellow and white alike) are living as integral but fungible production/consumption units in a great, interdependent global industrial civilization. It's not just that the UK depends on planeloads of US dollars. The US depends in turn on container-loads of Chinese goods; Germany depends on electricity from France; Thailand on industrial machines from Germany; Canada on planeloads of Chilean grapes; Japan on shiploads of Canadian lumber; Poland on Russian oil - you get the picture.

In all of this, we have not one iota of choice. This edifice was created and is run by men with a Plan to be something that would keep us amused and satisfied while they got rich. In the process we have become entranced by the artificial, and medicate away our inevitable alienation. Like Disney visitors popping Tylenol to keep the headache at bay while we marvel at Mickey and imagine what Peter Pan does at night with Tinkerbell.

39. good for him!

He could have spent his life playing around and waiting for the Queen to die, but he chose not to. Maybe he's spoiled--I am too, statistically speaking as a middle-class person in the United States, and all because of an accident of birth. His accident is just fancier than mine but I can't criticize someone for having been born lucky.

I'm glad that someone in his position is a good person and is smart enough to be concerned about the environment. It took me a long time to come around to his side but I am emphatically on it now. Even if he's not perfect in terms of doing what he preaches--and boy howdy, neither am I--his heart is in the right place. I really admire the Queen but I also think he will be a very good King.

68. WWF: UN assessment confirms world is standing on the brink of climate catastrophe

Gland, Switzerland – Governments are falling far short of their commitment to keep global average temperature rise below the accepted 2°C goal, putting the world on the brink of climate catastrophe.

The UN Environment Program’s Emissions Gap Report 2012, released today, identifies a huge gap between current pledges to cut polluting greenhouse gas emissions for 2020 and the benchmark of 44 gigatonnes that offers a credible pathway to staying below 2°C.

Last year, UNEP put the gap between pledges and what’s needed at 6-11 gigatonnes – but has now increased this estimate to an alarming 8-13 gigatonnes. In context, annual emissions from the US and China are currently around 7 and 10 to 11 gigatonnes, respectively.

“UNEP’s assessment confirms that the world is standing on the brink,” says Samantha Smith, head of WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative.

“On current levels of ambition, we are heading for warming of 4°C this century – a prospect that the World Bank this week described as ‘devastating’. In the face of such sobering assessments by some of the world’s largest institutions, we have to ask – what will it take for our leaders to listen and act?”

71. Well he and Al Gore should get together.

72. Ok then. As part of the privileged class, go after the oil industry and shut it down.

We can try to scare everyone with these warnings (which are essential...don't get me wrong here) but the control point of the problem is with the oil industry. Push for alternative energy and alternative transportation. Stop the insanity of using fossil fuels for all our energy needs and we go a long way to fixing the problem.

74. Climate mitigation: a moral imperative and a practical impossibility.

83. Listen to Glider Guider

This is my first post. I've read this blog for 5+ years now -daily. I know I'm a freeper and all the rest. But Glider Guider (and Girl Gone, Mad, etc.) correctly predicted the stock market crash of 2008. They all saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars, I'm eternally grateful. He disappeared from the economics board shortly after that. I missed him. But listen to him, -or it’s your own peril.
I live in the suburbs. I’ve put 35K of solar panels on my roof, bought a new vw tdi, raise chickens (and bees). What more can a person do? -Yes I have two great kids (and wife) too, that I wish all the world for. We are in deep...
The Chinese say “he who says, does not know” and “he who knows, does not say”. Listen to the whisper of people like Glider Guider.

87. Welcome to DU!

91. Welcome

I could give a damn what your politics are anymore, as I view the (mostly answered) questions of the 20th century as irrelevant. How can we bicker about the tax rate and economic stimulation when survival is staring us in the face?

126. If he won't shed the trappings of royalty, he can at least show that he's serious by

1. Starting and promoting a green fund to implement solar and wind power in the UK;
2. Put solar panels and wind turbines on all their properties' even if there isn't much sun, there's some; even if there isn't much wind, there's some;
3. Subsidize and promote wind turbine building off the UK coasts;
4. Award green innovation and distribution throughout the UK -- autos, farming, renewable energy kits;
5. Award green innovation in the UK military;
6. Have parliament pass a green corporate tax subsidy for their energy uses;
7. Travel in vehicles using renewables;
8. Visit renewable energy manufacturers to grasp implementation issues;
9. Get the PM to sign new trade agreements for import/export of green products;
10. Speak publicly about all of the above regularly and often.

I'm probably being naive. But if he's to be taken seriously, he'd better actually do more than treat this as another nerdy hobby, as evidenced by his making proclamations.